Re: erg/abs; verbs.

Mangiat wrote:
> Is in these tounges the verbal system generally passive? If I have verbal
> personal endings, will they agree with the absolutive? Is there in these
> languages a difference of voice as in Indoeuropean active/middle-passive?
It depends on the language.  In some, nouns are marked
absolutive/ergative, while everything else (including agreement) is
nom/acc.  In others, the agreement is with the absolutive.  In those
cases, there's usually an anti-passive that turns the ergative into an
absolutive, analogous to the function of passive.  It's thus used when
there's no object mentioned (John is writing) or when the focus is on
John for whatever reason.

> 3- use a trigger marker on verb's object to make it the subject of a passive
> statement:
>         Eat  I             apple
>         verb+1s         apple+ACC
>         I eat an aplle
>     becomes:
>         Eat  I             apple
>         verb+1s         apple+ACC+*TRIGGER*
>         An apple is eaten by me
It seems that it would be better to call that focusing, rather than
"passive".  Passive is a function of a verb.

> 4-    Future:             I will eat an apple, I'm going to eat an apple,
> I'm eating an apple
"I'm eating"?  Why would that be combined with future?

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